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A superstição do divórcio: & outros ensaios sobre a família, a mulher e a sociedade
Embora tenha sido escrito na época das mudanças nas leis sobre o matrimônio para facilitar o divórcio na Inglaterra (no início do século XX), não se trata de um libelo contra o divórcio, mas de uma defesa ao matrimônio. Para Chesterton, divorciar-se é, literalmente, descasar-se. Portanto, para desfazer algo é preciso saber antes se essa coisa está feita. A discussão pode parecer antiga, mas o mundo moderno adotou o divórcio como exemplo de liberdade. Chesterton pretende apenas demonstrar que o divórcio está longe de ser um ato de liberdade, pois a quebra de um voto de confiança, de comprometimento, não afeta apenas o fundamento da família, mas também de toda a sociedade que não funciona sem o voluntarismo de se manter intactos os compromisso assumidos.
Sobre o autor: Gilbert Keith Chesterton foi um jornalista e escritor Inglês, nascido em Londres em 29 de Maio de 1874. Foi educado na escola de St. Paul e em seguida ingressou na Slade School of London para estudar artes. A sua família era Anglicana, mas em 1922 Chesterton se converteu ao Catolicismo por influência do escritor Hilaire Belloc com quem mantinha grande amizade.
Sobre o autor: Gilbert Keith Chesterton foi um jornalista e escritor Inglês, nascido em Londres em 29 de Maio de 1874. Foi educado na escola de St. Paul e em seguida ingressou na Slade School of London para estudar artes. A sua família era Anglicana, mas em 1922 Chesterton se converteu ao Catolicismo por influência do escritor Hilaire Belloc com quem mantinha grande amizade.
152 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2003
11 people are currently reading
269 people want to read
About the author
G.K. Chesterton
4,669 books5,843 followersGilbert Keith Chesterton was an English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary and art critic.
He was educated at St. Paul’s, and went to art school at University College London. In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. He wrote over 4000 newspaper essays, including 30 years worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly.
Chesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology.
He was educated at St. Paul’s, and went to art school at University College London. In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. He wrote over 4000 newspaper essays, including 30 years worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly.
Chesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 24 reviews
April 6, 2019
This is an excellent little book about the the importance of vows, marriage, and family. Chesterton uses some metaphors that are really quite interesting to explain what happens when society makes it easy for people to break vows. He made me chuckle a few times -for instance when he brought up Henry VIII wanting a divorce and then followed that with the demolition of monasteries in England where the monks who had made vows were left without places in which to live them. Chesterton also says that free love is actually not free but free lust. He also makes the point that divorce is not freedom but slavery-- and he really makes this point most excellently and rather prophetically as we look at the world today and he wrote this in 1920. He says that when the family unit loses strength, the government gains extraordinary power over people's lives. He uses the example of state run education in England in 1920. Suffice to say, it is 99 years later and in my opinion, things have only gotten worse.
May 4, 2020
(This review is adapted from my blog post: https://philcotnoir.wordpress.com/202...)
When you read a hundred year old book dealing with a then-contemporary issue, you expect it to be rather dated. What you might not expect is for it to be readable, relevant and even prophetic for your own day. But if you’re reading an author who has a knack for seeing through the fog of rhetoric to the fundamental questions, like Gilbert Keith Chesterton, you should not at all be surprised to be underlining quotes, even lengthy passages, and drawing all kinds of parallels between his arguments and current 21st century debates.
I am referring to a booklet that was written in 1920 called “The Superstition of Divorce.” Now the occasion of this booklet is the radical idea of allowing people to divorce their spouses. This sounds very strange to our modern ears, since we cannot remember, let alone imagine, a society without legal and common no-fault divorce. But that very assumption, that our modern way is the best way to structure things, is exactly what Chesterton will have you question.
One of the simplest points he makes is that those arguing to legalize divorce do not understand what marriage is. And I think it’s fair to say many of us don’t really know either.
What many of them did know was that marriage was a confinement and a limitation, and it chafed against that powerful liberalizing spirit which still moves today. That spirit which sees every fence and every wall as holding slaves in need of emancipation, without stopping to ask if perhaps such structures were useful for keeping harmful things out.
The parallels between the liberalizing of marriage laws and the subsequent avalanche of liberalizing that has swept through the West, especially since the sexual revolution and continuing unabated today, forces the reader to stop and consider when and where it will all stop. Is there an end goal? What does that look like? Chesterton had no illusions about the end result of this attack on what he understood to be the foundation of civilization:
“This triangle of truisms, of father, mother and child, cannot be destroyed; it can only destroy those civilisations which disregard it.”
And in what is perhaps the most prescient statement of this prescient book, he says this:
“The obvious effect of frivolous divorce will be frivolous marriage. If people can be separated for no reason they will feel it all the easier to be united for no reason.”
There can be no doubt that the onset of no-fault divorce has led to a wave of shallow marriages which are themselves all the more ripe for divorce. Knowing that the decision to marry need not be a permanent one, the effect could not be other than to undermine the care and effort involved in making that decision and the determination to making it last.
To adapt a Chesterton quote from another of his books, we find ourselves as a society in a situation where the ideal of marriage has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried. Marriage today is like a highway to a great and glorious city, but that city is many thousands and thousands of miles away. It will take a lifetime of traveling to get there. But in the last hundred years we have built off-ramps, restaurants, malls, and amusement parks every two miles, with flashing neon signs and free admission. And we are shocked that so few couples make it to that great and glorious city. I admit it is a weak metaphor – I am no Chesterton. But perhaps it begins to make a point.
Of course in making these arguments and observations, I can hear the objections coming hard and fast from the modern reader. It is unthinkable… to imagine locking people into unhappy marriages, forced to live with brutes, abusers, and cheaters. I admit I have many of the same objections. And yet there is something very healthy about listening carefully to the argument that seems so alien. It may shed light on just that point in our own moral thinking where we are blind. Unless, enlightened progressive moderns that we are, we don’t believe we have any blind spots?
Near the conclusion, he writes this:
This striking image of a man with a hundred wives being like a jealous sultan speaks loudly to the pornographic age we live in – truly a sea of ‘bottomless ambition’ and ‘unnatural hunger’ that Chesterton could not have imagined. What was only possible for the sultan is now digitally possible for every 13 year old with an internet connection and a harem – I mean a hard drive.
As one poem says:
The secret that no one seems able to fathom
In our age of Botox and she-bots and atoms
That crystalline stream could more than the ocean
Fulfill that desire made apt in proportion.
In our age we question and undermine every law, rule, authority, and tradition except for the law, rule, and authority of our desires. We have deposed everything that has built our civilization and crowned our desires in its stead. Lead us! Teach us! we say. And what do we find? That our desires keep growing, shifting, morphing. There is a very old bit of wisdom, from a very old book, that argued that our desires could be changed, made new, and purified. They could be made apt, in proportion to our actual need, and then we would find what we had been after all along, the true and lasting satisfaction of our desires.
I fear that we have a generation of young men who are so lost in a far and distant country of sexual chaos and dysfunction that they will not even be able to stumble upon this truth and perhaps find happiness. Why? Because that far country never stops, just as one’s desires never stop – each growing beyond measure and recognition. But that is a topic for another day.
One last quote, on why the marriage vow is esteemed and respected:
Reading this book opened my eyes to the fascinating nature of the marriage vow, and to the idea of a lifelong binding promise. It is an idea so large that we do not see it. True, there is still some hint in our collective memory of the high honor due to it that we still make a big ceremony for the speaking of this vow, but even there for the most part we pay attention to all the wrong things: What a nice dress. Such pretty flowers. Sermon was a bit long. The food was good.
Chesterton’s point in that last quote is that, of all the institutions known to man, marriage is the most foundational, and therefore most deserving of our honor, and effort, and refusal to give up on it.
This view of marriage is a long way in the cultural rear-view mirror, barely visible. To many, unthinkable.
I am not saying we should make divorce illegal. I’m not convinced it would help much. But one thing I am quite sure of, having read this book, is that making divorce legal made it common; and making it common made marriage weaker; and making marriage weaker led to the implosion of the family; and the implosion of the family has not led to the happiness and freedom that was promised when divorce was made legal.
No doubt many individuals have been rescued from terrible marriages by legal divorce. I do not mourn that, just the opposite. But if we take a look around at the state of marriages and families today, we see a desolate wasteland abounding in human misery.
Perhaps, at some point, we have lost our way.
When you read a hundred year old book dealing with a then-contemporary issue, you expect it to be rather dated. What you might not expect is for it to be readable, relevant and even prophetic for your own day. But if you’re reading an author who has a knack for seeing through the fog of rhetoric to the fundamental questions, like Gilbert Keith Chesterton, you should not at all be surprised to be underlining quotes, even lengthy passages, and drawing all kinds of parallels between his arguments and current 21st century debates.
I am referring to a booklet that was written in 1920 called “The Superstition of Divorce.” Now the occasion of this booklet is the radical idea of allowing people to divorce their spouses. This sounds very strange to our modern ears, since we cannot remember, let alone imagine, a society without legal and common no-fault divorce. But that very assumption, that our modern way is the best way to structure things, is exactly what Chesterton will have you question.
One of the simplest points he makes is that those arguing to legalize divorce do not understand what marriage is. And I think it’s fair to say many of us don’t really know either.
“And the chief thing to say about such reformers of marriage is that they cannot make head or tail of it. They do not know what it is, or what it is meant to be, or what its supporters suppose it to be; they never look at it, even when they are inside it. They do the work that’s nearest; which is poking holes in the bottom of a boat under the impression that they are digging in a garden. This question of what a thing is, and whether it is a garden or a boat, appears to them abstract and academic. They have no notion of how large is the idea they attack; or how relatively small appear the holes that they pick in it.”
What many of them did know was that marriage was a confinement and a limitation, and it chafed against that powerful liberalizing spirit which still moves today. That spirit which sees every fence and every wall as holding slaves in need of emancipation, without stopping to ask if perhaps such structures were useful for keeping harmful things out.
The parallels between the liberalizing of marriage laws and the subsequent avalanche of liberalizing that has swept through the West, especially since the sexual revolution and continuing unabated today, forces the reader to stop and consider when and where it will all stop. Is there an end goal? What does that look like? Chesterton had no illusions about the end result of this attack on what he understood to be the foundation of civilization:
“This triangle of truisms, of father, mother and child, cannot be destroyed; it can only destroy those civilisations which disregard it.”
And in what is perhaps the most prescient statement of this prescient book, he says this:
“The obvious effect of frivolous divorce will be frivolous marriage. If people can be separated for no reason they will feel it all the easier to be united for no reason.”
There can be no doubt that the onset of no-fault divorce has led to a wave of shallow marriages which are themselves all the more ripe for divorce. Knowing that the decision to marry need not be a permanent one, the effect could not be other than to undermine the care and effort involved in making that decision and the determination to making it last.
To adapt a Chesterton quote from another of his books, we find ourselves as a society in a situation where the ideal of marriage has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried. Marriage today is like a highway to a great and glorious city, but that city is many thousands and thousands of miles away. It will take a lifetime of traveling to get there. But in the last hundred years we have built off-ramps, restaurants, malls, and amusement parks every two miles, with flashing neon signs and free admission. And we are shocked that so few couples make it to that great and glorious city. I admit it is a weak metaphor – I am no Chesterton. But perhaps it begins to make a point.
Of course in making these arguments and observations, I can hear the objections coming hard and fast from the modern reader. It is unthinkable… to imagine locking people into unhappy marriages, forced to live with brutes, abusers, and cheaters. I admit I have many of the same objections. And yet there is something very healthy about listening carefully to the argument that seems so alien. It may shed light on just that point in our own moral thinking where we are blind. Unless, enlightened progressive moderns that we are, we don’t believe we have any blind spots?
Near the conclusion, he writes this:
“If a man had a hundred houses, there would still be more houses than he had days in which to dream of them; if a man had a hundred wives, there would still be more women than he could ever know. He would be an insane sultan jealous of the whole human race, and even of the dead and the unborn. I believe that behind the art and philosophy of our time there is a considerable element of this bottomless ambition and this unnatural hunger; and since in these last words I am touching only lightly on things that would need much larger treatment, I will admit that the rending of the ancient roof of man is probably only a part of such an endless and empty expansion.”
This striking image of a man with a hundred wives being like a jealous sultan speaks loudly to the pornographic age we live in – truly a sea of ‘bottomless ambition’ and ‘unnatural hunger’ that Chesterton could not have imagined. What was only possible for the sultan is now digitally possible for every 13 year old with an internet connection and a harem – I mean a hard drive.
As one poem says:
The secret that no one seems able to fathom
In our age of Botox and she-bots and atoms
That crystalline stream could more than the ocean
Fulfill that desire made apt in proportion.
In our age we question and undermine every law, rule, authority, and tradition except for the law, rule, and authority of our desires. We have deposed everything that has built our civilization and crowned our desires in its stead. Lead us! Teach us! we say. And what do we find? That our desires keep growing, shifting, morphing. There is a very old bit of wisdom, from a very old book, that argued that our desires could be changed, made new, and purified. They could be made apt, in proportion to our actual need, and then we would find what we had been after all along, the true and lasting satisfaction of our desires.
I fear that we have a generation of young men who are so lost in a far and distant country of sexual chaos and dysfunction that they will not even be able to stumble upon this truth and perhaps find happiness. Why? Because that far country never stops, just as one’s desires never stop – each growing beyond measure and recognition. But that is a topic for another day.
One last quote, on why the marriage vow is esteemed and respected:
“The soldier is not respected because he is doomed to death, but because he is ready for death; and even ready for defeat. The married man or woman is not doomed to evil, sickness or poverty; but is respected for taking a certain step for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness or in health.”
“In short, everybody recognises that there is some ship, large and small, which he ought not to leave, even when he thinks it is sinking.”
Reading this book opened my eyes to the fascinating nature of the marriage vow, and to the idea of a lifelong binding promise. It is an idea so large that we do not see it. True, there is still some hint in our collective memory of the high honor due to it that we still make a big ceremony for the speaking of this vow, but even there for the most part we pay attention to all the wrong things: What a nice dress. Such pretty flowers. Sermon was a bit long. The food was good.
Chesterton’s point in that last quote is that, of all the institutions known to man, marriage is the most foundational, and therefore most deserving of our honor, and effort, and refusal to give up on it.
This view of marriage is a long way in the cultural rear-view mirror, barely visible. To many, unthinkable.
I am not saying we should make divorce illegal. I’m not convinced it would help much. But one thing I am quite sure of, having read this book, is that making divorce legal made it common; and making it common made marriage weaker; and making marriage weaker led to the implosion of the family; and the implosion of the family has not led to the happiness and freedom that was promised when divorce was made legal.
No doubt many individuals have been rescued from terrible marriages by legal divorce. I do not mourn that, just the opposite. But if we take a look around at the state of marriages and families today, we see a desolate wasteland abounding in human misery.
Perhaps, at some point, we have lost our way.
May 15, 2010
A good little read. As usual Chesterton mixes wit with an uncanny ability to make clear the enduring truths of Christendom. Though not a "Catholic" book per se, Chesterton defends the Catholic position on Marriage and shows how this position is the one taken by all sane persons throughout time. Chesterton illustrates how the desire for divorce is not a desire for liberty, but rather a desire for respectability of sin. The dissolving of marriage is not the end but merely a symptom of a much greater divorce from Christianity; most notably Catholic Christianity.
January 4, 2019
The original articles toward the front are typically brilliant Chesterton. The chapters he adds in addition to the original articles are good, though perhaps a bit tedious in comparison.
The thing I found primarily fascinating was less his arguments, and more the fact that he saw this as a problem 100 years ago, at a time which many of a conservative bent today look back upon as some sort of golden age. But modernity and its individualism at the expense of the family was already doing the destructive work which we now see in fuller fruition.
The thing I found primarily fascinating was less his arguments, and more the fact that he saw this as a problem 100 years ago, at a time which many of a conservative bent today look back upon as some sort of golden age. But modernity and its individualism at the expense of the family was already doing the destructive work which we now see in fuller fruition.
April 2, 2022
Seems like I have to read Chesterton's work twice to grasp what he's saying..... Will return at a later date
August 8, 2021
Chesterton's eloquence never ceases to amaze me. He is at once supremely sophisticated in his writing and genuinely easy to understand: I think the secret here may be in his sense of humour.
Here, as with most of this smaller works, he focuses on a single issue and manages to stay on point while delving into metaphors and connections seemingly unrelated, which I for one would never have thought to make.
This pamphlet, as he called it, tackles an issue that is more pressing now, not less, than when the pamphlet was written. In his own words: "This is a pamphlet and not a book, and the writer of a pamphlet not only deals with passing things but generally with things which he hopes will pass. In that sense it is the object of a pamphlet to be out of date as soon as possible." I don't think there is anyone on either side of this issue which would say that the question of divorce has been settled.
Strides have been made, decisions taken, to the effect that the relationships between men and women (for better or ill) are not what they once were. It remains to be seen, as we live in the consequences of the philosophy Chesterton criticised, where this emancipation will end. I for one, have never found the emancipators totally convincing; not nearly as convincing as I find Chesterton.
It may seem that I give this pamphlet 5 starts because I either agree with it or enjoyed it, and so am not critically judging it as I ought. It is more than his point that impresses me though: Chesterton knows how to make prose poetical and common sense romantic. If there is a criticism I could offer, I would HAVE to disagree with his final point: and I have found that I do not.
Here, as with most of this smaller works, he focuses on a single issue and manages to stay on point while delving into metaphors and connections seemingly unrelated, which I for one would never have thought to make.
This pamphlet, as he called it, tackles an issue that is more pressing now, not less, than when the pamphlet was written. In his own words: "This is a pamphlet and not a book, and the writer of a pamphlet not only deals with passing things but generally with things which he hopes will pass. In that sense it is the object of a pamphlet to be out of date as soon as possible." I don't think there is anyone on either side of this issue which would say that the question of divorce has been settled.
Strides have been made, decisions taken, to the effect that the relationships between men and women (for better or ill) are not what they once were. It remains to be seen, as we live in the consequences of the philosophy Chesterton criticised, where this emancipation will end. I for one, have never found the emancipators totally convincing; not nearly as convincing as I find Chesterton.
It may seem that I give this pamphlet 5 starts because I either agree with it or enjoyed it, and so am not critically judging it as I ought. It is more than his point that impresses me though: Chesterton knows how to make prose poetical and common sense romantic. If there is a criticism I could offer, I would HAVE to disagree with his final point: and I have found that I do not.
Read
May 1, 2018"If a man had a hundred houses, there would still be more houses than he had days in which to dream of them; if a man had a hundred wives, there would still be more women than he could ever know. He would be an insane sultan jealous of the whole human race, and even of the dead and the unborn. I believe that behind the art and philosophy of our time there is a considerable element of this bottomless ambition and this unnatural hunger....In so far as this is the modern mood, it is a thing so deadly as to be already dead. What is vitally needed everywhere, in art as much as in ethics, in poetry as much as in politics, is choice; a creative power in the will as well as in the mind. Without that self limitation of somebody, nothing living will ever see the light. "
January 4, 2023
Genial. De lo mejor que he leído de Chesterton. Obra poco conocida y en estos tiempos será difícil que le hagan mucha publicidad. El autor nos explica las razones por las cuales el divorcio afecta a la sociedad; así como los constantes ataques a la institución familiar. Muy valiosa obra.
October 15, 2014
hmmmmm....
February 18, 2018
Chesterton comes up with surprising points, as usual, and always right on.
July 15, 2019
I have my Collected Works of Chesterton sitting on my Kindle in case of the emergency that reading for whatever reason loses its luster. I'm sorry guys, I haven't been reading as much lately due to a variety of things-- graduating, defending my thesis, house hunting, having a new child, etc. But probably the biggest thing was the luxury of working from home the past few weeks: it obliterated my regularly scheduled reading time for which I reserve my bus rides. With that gone, I hardly get a few pages in. Add to that the fact that I hadn't found a book that I really got into, so I had to pull out my emergency Chesterton.
I flipped to some of his non-fiction, and ended up with this pamphlet on divorce. Sounds like a happy topic, right? Back in the day, divorce laws were liberalizing battlegrounds, from what I can gather. It seems that the specific law in question Chesterton was writing about would have allowed a woman or man to file for divorce in the case of three years absence. Chesterton, as usual, writes very wittily on the topic with a very shrewd defense of conservative values that rings very full of common sense. His opening argument is the classic conservative position:
"The man, like the mouse, undermines what he cannot understand. Because he bumps into a thing, he calls it the nearest obstacle; though the obstacle may happen to be he pillar that holds up the whole roof over his head. He industriously removes the obstacle; and, in return, the obstacle removes him and much more valuable things than he."
The discussion of divorce includes a beautiful section on vows that a Latter-Day Saint could definitely appreciate. Covenants are central to our theology, and perhaps the idea of a vow is slightly different: freely chosen, to a larger extent than covenants (you can choose to make the covenant, but the terms and conditions are less up to you than in a vow). Take this section:
The idea, or at any rate, the ideal, of the thing called a vow is fairly obvious. It is to combine the fixity that goes with finality with the self-respect that only goes with freedom.
When society lost the centrality of vows, men were a little less free. Chesterton paints marriage as family as the only institution that can stand up to ever-growing governments:
They desire the democracy to be sexually fluid, because the making of small nuclei is like the making of small nations. Like small nations, they are a nuisance to the mind of imperial scope. In short, what they fear, in the most literal sense, is home rule.
To me, Chesterton paints the family in a romantic light that the formal language of The Family: A Proclamation to the World doesn't capture. I think we need a Mormon Chesterton, tbh. One that makes it clear that the conservative position doesn't have to be that of a stuffed shirt, accepted blindly from tradition. But an intellectually engaging one, one filled with a spirit of adventure, and one that embodies the love that is meant to be central to the gospel.
I flipped to some of his non-fiction, and ended up with this pamphlet on divorce. Sounds like a happy topic, right? Back in the day, divorce laws were liberalizing battlegrounds, from what I can gather. It seems that the specific law in question Chesterton was writing about would have allowed a woman or man to file for divorce in the case of three years absence. Chesterton, as usual, writes very wittily on the topic with a very shrewd defense of conservative values that rings very full of common sense. His opening argument is the classic conservative position:
"The man, like the mouse, undermines what he cannot understand. Because he bumps into a thing, he calls it the nearest obstacle; though the obstacle may happen to be he pillar that holds up the whole roof over his head. He industriously removes the obstacle; and, in return, the obstacle removes him and much more valuable things than he."
The discussion of divorce includes a beautiful section on vows that a Latter-Day Saint could definitely appreciate. Covenants are central to our theology, and perhaps the idea of a vow is slightly different: freely chosen, to a larger extent than covenants (you can choose to make the covenant, but the terms and conditions are less up to you than in a vow). Take this section:
The idea, or at any rate, the ideal, of the thing called a vow is fairly obvious. It is to combine the fixity that goes with finality with the self-respect that only goes with freedom.
When society lost the centrality of vows, men were a little less free. Chesterton paints marriage as family as the only institution that can stand up to ever-growing governments:
They desire the democracy to be sexually fluid, because the making of small nuclei is like the making of small nations. Like small nations, they are a nuisance to the mind of imperial scope. In short, what they fear, in the most literal sense, is home rule.
To me, Chesterton paints the family in a romantic light that the formal language of The Family: A Proclamation to the World doesn't capture. I think we need a Mormon Chesterton, tbh. One that makes it clear that the conservative position doesn't have to be that of a stuffed shirt, accepted blindly from tradition. But an intellectually engaging one, one filled with a spirit of adventure, and one that embodies the love that is meant to be central to the gospel.
January 27, 2026
I can always count on Chesterton to be both funny and clever. He makes several important points in this book, chiefly regarding vows and the importance of family integrity against the wiles of the state and capitalist interests; but as intelligently as he makes these, Chesterton seems to have (perhaps intentionally) neglected the circumstances in which breaking the vow of marriage might be necessary and legitimate. The Catholic Church has, it seems to me, always had trouble with vows, and this book is perfect case in point. The sanctity of the confessional, for example--built as it is on a vow to unconditional confidentiality--has created a legal blind that shields criminals from the justice system while, at the same time, providing them with a sense of spiritual absolution. In light of recent confessional-related scandals, it is now obvious to me that some vows should be broken. Chesterton's book, and the institutional Catholic hierarchy, should consider the important question of when.
I loved this quote of his from the conclusion, and wanted to share it here: “There is a sense in which it is really a human if heroic possibility to love everybody; and the young student will not find it a bad preliminary exercise to love somebody. But the fallacy I mean is that of a man who is not even content to love everybody, but really wishes to be everybody. He wishes to walk down a hundred roads at once; to sleep in a hundred houses at once; to live a hundred lives at once. To do something like this in the imagination is one of the occasional visions of art and poetry; to attempt it in the art of life is not only anarchy but inaction. Even in the arts it can only be the first hint and not the final fulfillment; a man cannot work at once in bronze and marble, or play the organ and the violin at the same time. The universal vision of being such a Briareus is a nightmare of nonsense even in the merely imaginative world; and ends in mere nihilism in the social world. If a man had a hundred houses, there would still be more houses than he had days in which to dream of them; if a man had a hundred wives, there would still be more women than he could ever know. He would be an insane sultan jealous of the whole human race, and even of the dead and the unborn. I believe that behind the art and philosophy of our time there is a considerable element of this bottomless ambition and this unnatural hunger; and since in these last words I am touching only lightly on things that would need much larger treatment, I will admit that the rending of the ancient roof of man is probably only a part of such an endless and empty expansion.”
I loved this quote of his from the conclusion, and wanted to share it here: “There is a sense in which it is really a human if heroic possibility to love everybody; and the young student will not find it a bad preliminary exercise to love somebody. But the fallacy I mean is that of a man who is not even content to love everybody, but really wishes to be everybody. He wishes to walk down a hundred roads at once; to sleep in a hundred houses at once; to live a hundred lives at once. To do something like this in the imagination is one of the occasional visions of art and poetry; to attempt it in the art of life is not only anarchy but inaction. Even in the arts it can only be the first hint and not the final fulfillment; a man cannot work at once in bronze and marble, or play the organ and the violin at the same time. The universal vision of being such a Briareus is a nightmare of nonsense even in the merely imaginative world; and ends in mere nihilism in the social world. If a man had a hundred houses, there would still be more houses than he had days in which to dream of them; if a man had a hundred wives, there would still be more women than he could ever know. He would be an insane sultan jealous of the whole human race, and even of the dead and the unborn. I believe that behind the art and philosophy of our time there is a considerable element of this bottomless ambition and this unnatural hunger; and since in these last words I am touching only lightly on things that would need much larger treatment, I will admit that the rending of the ancient roof of man is probably only a part of such an endless and empty expansion.”
August 31, 2021
Short and to the point. I am not as adamantly opposed to divorce as GKC was -- I would certainly allow divorce in the case of an abusive spouse, and would put up with no nonsense about the abusive spouse merely expressing the mores of a different society -- but I think Chesterton is absolutely correct when he argues that, without solid families, government will dominate people's lives to an inordinate degree. In this age of Big Government and Big Business, I would further say that solid families protect people from Big Business as well, in the sense of offering a contrary view of the world and of the value of people. Big Business and Big Government both have good reason to want people isolated and alone; people in families need government less, and want fewer products from Big Business than they would if everyone had to live alone.
Chesterton is correct -- the family is not merely an expression of our freedoms; it is a protection of them.
Chesterton is correct -- the family is not merely an expression of our freedoms; it is a protection of them.
October 7, 2022
El matrimonio no es para el individuo.
Durante el debate de la legalización del divorcio, que hoy en día en la cultura occidental judeocristiana está en crecimiento la tasa de divorcio, lo que el tiempo le dió la razón.
Uno ya no puede comprometerse con un cónyuge, ya no puede elegir y descartar el resto de opciones.
Chesterton tiene un humor inglés que me encanta, me hace sentir que soy estúpido por no caer en sus falacias fundadas en una “supuesta naturaleza humana” que es la atracción del hombre y la mujer, y argumenta que el matrimonio es lo que se opone al abuso de poder del estado.
Habla sobre la fraternidad; el patriotismo, su importancia y diferencia con el matrimonio el cual se elige.
Me gusta que hace una especie de reconocimiento al voto que hacían los caballeros en la Edad Media.
Durante el debate de la legalización del divorcio, que hoy en día en la cultura occidental judeocristiana está en crecimiento la tasa de divorcio, lo que el tiempo le dió la razón.
Uno ya no puede comprometerse con un cónyuge, ya no puede elegir y descartar el resto de opciones.
Chesterton tiene un humor inglés que me encanta, me hace sentir que soy estúpido por no caer en sus falacias fundadas en una “supuesta naturaleza humana” que es la atracción del hombre y la mujer, y argumenta que el matrimonio es lo que se opone al abuso de poder del estado.
Habla sobre la fraternidad; el patriotismo, su importancia y diferencia con el matrimonio el cual se elige.
Me gusta que hace una especie de reconocimiento al voto que hacían los caballeros en la Edad Media.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 3, 2025
At times quite wordy (Ol’ GK can sometimes beat a horse to death, resurrect it, then beat it to death again), but there are, as usual, some absolute gems of wordplay, wit, and wisdom. It’s not his strongest work, but it’s definitely worth reading.
One of my favorite quotes (which is a spot on prediction for how a lot of society treats marriage):
“The obvious effect of frivolous divorce will be frivolous marriage. If people can be separated for no reason they will feel it all the easier to be united for no reason. A man might quite clearly foresee that a sensual infatuation would be fleeting, and console himself with the knowledge that the connection could be equally fleeting.”
For him to have written this in 1920? Prophetic to say the least.
One of my favorite quotes (which is a spot on prediction for how a lot of society treats marriage):
“The obvious effect of frivolous divorce will be frivolous marriage. If people can be separated for no reason they will feel it all the easier to be united for no reason. A man might quite clearly foresee that a sensual infatuation would be fleeting, and console himself with the knowledge that the connection could be equally fleeting.”
For him to have written this in 1920? Prophetic to say the least.
March 6, 2018
A short piece on divorce, what Mr. Chesterton calls a pamphlet. He approaches it with an appeal from reason/natural law, rather than with any religious argument. He is more convoluted than usual—in his own words, it’s one of his more ‘crude and sketchy’ pieces. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed his ramblings and clever lines and insights—and of course, the glimpse his writings always afford of our age in its childhood stages of lunacy. His argument, though necessarily underdeveloped, centers on the family as a form of government that threatens the state, and therefore, a supreme target of the state—and therefore, the civic permission to divorce. Ponderable content.
January 30, 2024
…it seems to amuse them to make again, if possible in a church, a promise they have already broken in practice and almost avowedly disbelieve in principle. In face of this headlong fashion, it is really reasonable to ask the divorce reformers what is their attitude towards the old monogamous ethic of our civilisation; and whether they wish to retain it in general, or to retain it at all.
March 19, 2023
This was more difficult to follow than some of more popular writings of Chesterton. Tangents and rabbit holes during argumentation left me lost at times. Wish he focused a bit more on the incredible idea that the family is the counterbalance to the state. Still great insights throughout.
November 16, 2019
A convincing read, done with wit and copious ethos (as per usual in his writings).
February 15, 2020
Is nog steeds heel relevant helaas.
February 3, 2021
Livlbrivox.
January 25, 2012
This is not really a book, as Chesterton mentions, it was supposed to be a pamphlet as if divorce would have been a temporary social disease. However, unfortunately for us, it proved to be permanent. In this work, he describes the social implications of divorce and why the opposition of divorce is not religious but natural. Very recommended.
September 3, 2015
Occasionally dated. Often insightful. Brilliant throughput.
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